


Anagram

by fauxilya



Category: 17th Century CE RPF
Genre: Epistolary, M/M, The author does not know what she's doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 10:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30137904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxilya/pseuds/fauxilya
Summary: Leibniz had not been able to decipher Newton's anagram in his 1677 letter.
Relationships: Isaac Newton/Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Kudos: 2





	Anagram

_6accdae13eff7i3l9n4o4qrr4s8t12ux._

The secret of fluxations. Leibniz pondered over the seemingly random combination of letters and numbers, lips pressed into a thin line. The letter must have waited some time to finally reach him, judging from its frayed edges; he had only stumbled upon it by chance, as he had every secret that the universe held when he first delved into the field. He had blamed the near loss of this fortune on his early departure—blamed the distance and time that separated him from one of the most fascinating enigmas that human mind had ever produced. Yet, after his six months living without the knowledge of the letter’s existence, fate had brought it to him. God had willed for Leibniz—who was of equal talent in mind power to his British rival—to decipher Newton’s code.

_They were, inherently, the same people;_ thought Leibniz as he crossed off another hopeless interpretation. Neither he nor Newton saw benefit in sharing the fruit of their minds before the ultimate publication; both prodigies from youth, they held the gift from God too dearly and distrusted other minds’ ability to carry the weight of knowledge produced by theirs. He recollected, with little remorse, of his brief exchange with Fatio, done in the respect of their collective mentor, the renowned Huygens. The bright young man, whom he heard had formed a rather intimate relationship with Newton himself(an indeed smart move on his side, thought Leibniz bitterly), bluntly requested a preview of Leibniz’s recent work. The elder disciple, irritated, had responded with a polite silence. The social adeptness as possessed by the lawyer and the illustrious man’s complacency with himself at the crest of his fame may have led him to shower none but flattery on the young, self-proclaimed mathematician, but there was no space for denial of Leibniz’s deeply rooted contempt for he who later became Newton’s ape. He despised—resented—any form of transforming the sole product of his brain into some asset of co-possession with another.

Hence his ready comprehension of Newton’s true motive in embedding the anagram; a challenge, to a mind that he considered rivaled his own. This Leibniz understood, and took in with good humor. It was a language of their own, two people whose brilliance of minds were on the same plane of existence, a puzzle intended for Leibniz alone before presented by its original author to the world. _6accdae13eff7i3l9n4o4qrr4s8t12ux._ The unsolvable solution.

Yet—Leibniz, always one to offense and not retract, was on the brink of defeat.

He had not been deterred from progress; far from it. He had worked through countless sunrises, attempting to translate the code by applying rules of English, French, German, Hebrew, Greek, Latin—quadratic functions, xOy plane and angular coordinates, geometric patterns—the flow of dresses, the tipping of hats, the tremble of breezes—the motion of the moon, the blinking of stars, the melting of metals—every single being, on earth or extraterrestrial, he had observed and examined in hope to crack the spell.

And crack it he did. As if finding solutions to a quadratic function, Leibniz came up with dual interpretations. A binary of cleverly woven together possibilities, or an impossible coincidence; but there existed no coincidence in science, or in any disciplines exploring the universe’s working, less the creation of human mind. A mind that claimed superiority of his time, but human nevertheless.

_I seek to acquaint your genius with my recent advance in knowledge, and anxiously await your reply._

He penned an elaborate response as soon as he acquired the first outcome, praying that the loss in time would be compensated by the honesty of his answer. He knew little of Newton’s temperament, but he had heard _rumors._ Leibniz pitied the man who had worked himself into a mangle, wrestling with the galaxy’s puzzle until his brain malfunctioned, as if he was mid-way his ascension to heaven.

The replying letter being sent, Leibniz was not satisfied. There was a voice nagging at the back of his mind, a thought ghosting over his consciousness, a _thing_ haunting his trails, that something had been amiss with the singularity of his interpretation. Afterwards, he had received sporadic letters from the elder scientist during the course of his continued mental toil, the distant tone of which more or less confirming his doubt.

He had not brought up the subject in their later correspondence. He considered it unworthy, but in reality, he did not want to acknowledge Newton’s victory. He had given the younger a task of which he found no way of completion, and the latter was reluctant—too proud, too used to success—to submit under this pressure, & display his weakness for his colleague to see. It was an unfair game of cat and mouse, of powder and fuse, a hungry lion let before the naked gladiator. A game that Leibniz wasn’t prepared to lose.

He sighed, dipped a new quill into the ink, and buried his nose back in the mountain of papers.

* * *

_Ask Newton._ The moon was dark tonight, little silvery light filtrating through the window pane. Where the tip of his quill met the paper, blocks of text—hurried, frantic retaliations—appeared, illuminated by the wavering candlelight. _He knows._

_That Judas!_ The cursive of the _f_ took an ungraceful downward turn. That narrow-minded, attention-seeking little man, whose trap Newton had foolishly fallen into, he dared accuse Leibniz of unfairness, of theft! Those English bastards across the channel had clearly joined in some insidious agenda to discredit the work of his life, pitting his friend—suffering terribly both from the end of an affair and the loss of a substantial amount of his work—against him, amidst the rare era of peace they dared! Why, Leibniz wondered, embarrassed and desperate, was Newton so keen on remaining silent?

He still hadn’t seen the light in his search for an alternative interpretation. He never did. He never _could._

_6accdae13ef7i3l9n4o4qrr4s8t12ux_ he wrote down and crossed out.

Leibniz paused the motion of his hand in frustration. _A thief. Charged with unfounded accusations. He only had to prove his innocence by deciphering a single piece of anagram from when they were young men._ Ask Newton, he had written over and over again. _I do not—cannot know._

That was when Leibniz knew, prior to any of his contemporaries, that he—lost. Newton had nailed his winning decades ago.

* * *

_“I long for your friendship, sir—and hope that you may return my affection.”_

A sliver of Cambridge’s bleakness stole its way onto the page, clouding over the yet-to-dry line.

When Newton did receive Leibniz’s reply, had eagerly melted the sealing wax and lifted the yellowing paper in front of his eyes to read, heart pounding an unfamiliar beat in his chest—Leibniz had read his anagram _wrong_. He had purposefully left out an _f_. The arrogant German had humiliated him with his silence.

So he watched as the Royal society published their report, and never, _ever_ , said a word in his rival’s defense. The schism was open; it could never be closed.

**Author's Note:**

> My Calculus teacher would kill me if she knew about this lol  
> I most certainly don't know the real meaning of that anagram. I mean, I'm just a history student struggling with calculus. I'm sorry Sir Isaac.  
> Am i really the only one shipping these two? Their rivalry was real interesting and i'd ship any pair of rivals by default


End file.
